


To Build Something Precious

by livy_bear



Series: Living is an Awfully Big Adventure [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arya Stark Has Feelings, Baratheon Bastards, F/M, Family Feels, Found Family, Gen, Just one toward the end of the story, Not Canon Compliant, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livy_bear/pseuds/livy_bear
Summary: The Storms End Pack grows as more family finds their way to the keep. And Arya deals with some things she's ignored.---This fic is the third in my Awfully Big Adventure series, and will have three parts.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Series: Living is an Awfully Big Adventure [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1669792
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	To Build Something Precious

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: there is a panic attack toward the end of this fic. If you believe this might be triggering to you, please skip it. When you see the line "she hadn't meant to speak so candidly to her good-brother" that is the beginning, SKIP TO "She took a deep breath in and the roaring cleared some" that is the end.
> 
> That being said. This fic is 3 parts, and was titled "baratheon bastards and a baby" so that might tell you what this will be about.

Arya really should have noticed sooner, but in her defense, a lot of things happened all at once in Storms End.

It all really started after the meeting of the Stormlords was over, and all of the parties and emissaries had gone home. Lord Estermont stayed for a little while longer, getting to know his cousin. He took to the family quickly, insisting they call him Duncan and never hesitate to send word if they need anything. He spent time getting to know Elenna as well, and offered her and Gendry insight to the houses they ruled. 

He told Arya of his own son, Leonard—a lad of eight and ten, and if Elenna decided she wanted to see more of the lands, that he would make sure the lad personally escorted her. He also left her and Gendry both with a good handful of small tips on parenting. As the group gathered to say goodbye, the young lord clapped Gendry on both shoulders with a bright smile.

“Welcome to the family,” he said. Then the Estermont party climbed onto their horses and into the carriage and were gone. 

Arya smiled as they went.

Gendry caught her grin, “You like him then.”

“I don’t think he’s likely to stab you in the gut, no,” she snarked. Gendry laughed dryly, pressing a kiss to her lips that didn’t last very long for their twin smiles.

“Arya,” Elenna asked, toying with the end of her sleeve.

“Yes, love?”

“Uncle Duncan said Leonard could ride well,” she twiddled her fingers. “Could I learn to ride a horse?”

“Have you never ridden on your own before?” Arya asked, tucking a stray hair behind the girl’s ear. 

“Not without you holding the reins,” Elenna replied.

Arya hummed, glancing at Gendry who nodded. “Well then, I suppose we’ll have to start right away.”

“Really?” she looked between the two of them. “Today?”

“We’ve still got petitions to do,” Gendry said. “But you can start first thing tomorrow.”

Elenna squealed, hugging Arya and Gendry both before running off to find Melysa, most like. The two girls had become fast friends, and could often be found running about the castle together.Melysa had managed to worm her way into the affections of the Lord and Lady of Storms End. She was a precocious girl of about ten and three that took to herself to show Elenna all the ways about the castle. She told stories of the Baratheon family that she’d learned from her mother—their whole family having served the house for generations. Her father Garreth was their steward, and had overheard quite a few things from him. 

Very often, Elenna would come to Gendry at supper to tell him all she had learned about their house. She loved a good story, and was quite the storyteller. Arya loved how she would describe Storms End as if she was there in the days of King Robert.

The following morning Arya went out riding with Elenna on her own horse for the first time. She spent most of their time out teaching the girl how to saddle up, and to make sure her horse was well watered and fed before taking her out. If the animal was tired, the ride wouldn’t last very long or go very well. The mare she chose was a sweet one named Summer, for the long summer she was born in. Arya felt a pang in her chest like a physical thing at the reminder of her brother’s long-dead dire wolf. 

“A good name,” she told the stable boy. He smiled a gap-toothed grin.

They traveled an easy path around the hills and clifftop of the stormlands. Arya mostly wanted to make sure Elenna could learn the reins and controls for a horse before teaching her to move any faster than a trot. 

They came back to the castle every day around midday. Elenna would thank Arya with a hug or a kiss on the cheek, then she would be off to her lessons. She took to things much better than Arya had, enjoying the expectations that came with being a little lady. She knew it had to do with choosing the life for herself, verses being told it was your only option, but still. She loved all of the fighting and riding and rolling in the dirt as Arya had, but she also loved the sewing and dancing as she despised. Elenna would be better than her. And Arya was glad for it.

When she revealed that thought to Gendry one night, he took her face firmly in his hands. “No one is better or worse than someone else just for being good at different things.”

Arya scoffed. She knew that, but sometimes, she supposed, being reminded didn’t hurt. Gendry had held her so tightly that night as well, like he was trying to mark it into her bones. She couldn’t fault him for his love.

One afternoon, Arya and Elenna had been out much longer than normal, roaming about the fields and town on horseback. They stopped in some smaller shops in the tiny town just outside of the castle, and checked in with the owners. Arya preferred these small moments of dropping by to the formal walks about the town the lords had suggested she and Gendry do. This felt more her, and gave her a better sense of how their people were getting on. 

A tavern matron told her about the influx of guests they’d had due to people coming from Kings Landing and looking for a new start. The outer fields had become homesteads over the past six months, and there were only more making their way in. Kings Landing had nearly rebuilt most of their housing, but many folks didn’t want to live in the ghost of the destruction and the people they’d lost. Arya told the woman she would do the best she could. She knew Gendry would obviously want to help, but procuring the means to house all the refugees wouldn’t be as easy as opening up guest quarters in the keep. Though, she promised to herself, if they couldn’t find housing elsewhere, she would gladly let people into Storms End. It was a big castle with a small family and household staff for the moment.

Arya spoke with the matron for a bit longer, while Elenna helped the cook prepare dinner for the guests. Then the two of them went on through the small fish market near the docks, past the butchery, and back towards the main road to the gates of Storms End. By that point the sun had dropped in the sky and was tending more towards evening than afternoon. 

“We should get you back or your Septa will have my head about missing your lessons,” Arya remarked, retrieving their horses back from the tavern. 

“It isn’t so bad if I miss some of the histories,” Elenna shrugged. “I can always ask Davos to tell me the stories.”

“Does Davos mind?” Arya raised her eyebrow at the girl. They had saddled up and began their ride back home.

Elenna looked cooly back, “Davos told me I was like a granddaughter to him.”

“Oh, he did.”

“Yes,” she smiled smugly. “And grandfathers tell their grandchildren stories about all sorts of things because that’s their job.”

Arya laughed lightly thinking of Elenna, headstrong and stubborn, begging Davos to tell her stories of histories he learned not too long ago himself. She thought that might make him a better teacher, but she also appreciated how much he loved her girl. She wasn’t lying when she said Davos was a part of their family. He watched over Gendry and Jon both like they were is own sons, and now that he’d chosen to stay with Gendry as an advisor and friend, she’d gotten lucky enough to see the way he cared for her husband. She caught him smiling proudly as Gendry advanced through his own lessons, and every time he made a particularly wise decision with the small folk, Davos would get the same look in his eye Arya had often seen in her own father’s. 

He not only supported those two, but had become a confidant for Arya herself as well. She was endeared quickly to the older man after a particularly bad nightmare had her pacing the halls of the castle. She ran into him on a walk of his own, and they’d quietly continued to walk together. Eventually they ended up on an overlook observing the sea as it crashed against the rocks below. Arya found herself revealing the dream in the dark of the night, and Davos simply listened. He then shared his own thoughts keeping him up, regrets of decisions he made, lives he felt guilty for, and different choices he hadn’t seen at the time. He shared with Arya and she found a kinship in their shared fears. They both had lost so much only to build some happiness back, and the soul-wrenching terror of losing it all again kept them awake and stole their peace. 

Arya felt even more thankful for Davos’s silent, non-judgement every day after. She bucked up the courage to lay her thoughts bare to Gendry, and had only received support and understanding back from him. She felt like she was learning how to let people back inside the walls she’d needed to survive. So far she had a total of three people truly behind those walls, but she thought maybe she could let Sansa all the way in, the rest of her siblings to follow.

Once the two reached Storms End again, Arya was curious to find a commotion in the court yard. She jumped down from her mount, taking in the three guardsmen speaking tensely with a man next to a horse. He still had his traveling cloak pulled up, so Arya couldn’t catch a clear sight of his full face, just that he looked young and was very tall. His cloak looked well made but not new—a journeyman perhaps.

As Arya handed off her reins and drew closer, she began to pick up the conversation.

“I’m sure you may request and audience soon,” a guard was saying. “The lord and lady are very busy as of late—”

“Have petitions happened already?” the man asked. His voice was deep, but Arya could now tell that though he was full grown, there was still some boy left in him. She pinned him around her own age in years.

“There were no petitions today,” the second guard said—Abel.

“No petitions,” the stranger said.

“The lady is out and Lord Baratheon is working,” the first guard replied. “We suggest you come back _tomorrow_ , and we can see about an audience.”

“There’s no need,” Arya interrupted, finally completely reaching the four of them, Elenna only a few steps behind her.

“My lady,” the guards addressed, nodding their heads to her.

She nodded back, turning to the stranger looking him up and down. She pursed her lips. “And why did you need an audience with the lord?”

“I take it you’re Lady Baratheon,” he smiled.

“I am,” she confirmed. “Who are you?”

“My name is Edric Storm, my lady,” he nodded towards the doors. “And I grew up in this castle.”

“Storm,” she repeated, assessing him. “Another of Robert’s?”

“Aye, my lady.”

Arya hummed. She began ticking off the features he shared with Gendry. They both had strikingly blue eyes and dark hair—visible under his hood, now that she was close enough. He was tall, and they shared Robert’s cheekbones. But his nose was crooked where Gendry’s was straight, and the corners of his lips bowed up where Gendry’s did not. He also carried a confidence with him of someone raised in a keep.

“All of Robert’s bastards were killed,” she declared.

“Clearly not, as you’ve got one for a lord,” he smiled the same as Gendry.

“Where were you all this time?” Arya slipped easily into the familiar cool exterior. She took in every small move he made, every shift, every blink. If Edric wasn’t who he claimed to be, she would see it. After all, Death had many faces. 

“In Lys,” Edric answered easily.

“Why leave?” she cocked an eyebrow, beginning to circle him like a wolf stalking her prey. “Your family seat was ripe for taking. No one would argue your claim.”

Edric smiled wryly. “My Uncle Renly, sent a raven soon after my father died. He told me to board a trading vessel bound for Lys that he had secretly contracted to stop at Storms End. I would have a new name and a new life.”

_True_ , she thought. “And who were you?”

“Elio Sand,” he said. “An unimportant Dornish bastard, come to start a new life in the free cities.”

_True._ “No one knew what became of you?”

“I imagine they faked my death somehow.”

Arya paused, glancing at the guards who seemed to be waiting for her to give the word. “You don’t know?”

“I was in Lys, my lady,” he snarked.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t receive a raven,” she shrugged.

“I had no contact from anyone in Westeros,” he protested. “No one knew I was alive.”

“Lie,” she said, reflexively slapping him. _Hard_. Edric cried out, drawing back from her. His hand dropped to the pommel of the sword strapped to his hip. Arya heard the guards move to pull their weapons. She held her hand up to stop them. 

“I-I’m sorry,” Arya grimaced, flexing her fingers. “That was an old habit.”

Edric studied her for a moment. “I received a letters from my uncle informing me of the war. The last I’d heard, Brienne of Tarth had come into his service. I—I didn’t get anything after that.”

“Lord Renly was murdered with dark magics,” the guard, Abel, piped in. “I was merely more than a boy when it happened, but…there are whispers.”

“I feared as much,” Edric nodded grimly, then laughed once. “Maybe not the magic part.”

Arya took stock of her apparent good-brother again. He seemed truthful enough; his lie seemingly born out of the instinct to protect Renly Baratheon. She glanced to Abel and the other guard, who she’d come to trust to do their jobs. 

Edric Storm, then.

Huh.

“Come inside,” Arya said, gesturing towards the doors. “We’ll have supper, and I’ll introduce you to your brother.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Edric bowed gently. 

“Just Arya,” she corrected.

She led the way inside after asking Abel to please bring her and Elenna’s horses to the stables. Edric walked a pace behind her, keeping up with her quick strides. Elenna fell quickly in next to him, and she heard her ward begin to lightly converse with the man. She asked him where Lys was, and if it was beautiful. He indulged her, spinning words at how everything looked. Arya could hear just from the sound of her gasps how enamored Elenna was with it all. She felt a soft and tender spot in her chest that she’d begun to associate with the young girl. 

“How did you know to come back?” she asked. 

_Smart question_ , Arya thought.

“A raven,” was the reply. 

“What did it say?”

Edric hesitated, “I’ll tell you once we’re all met together, with my, uh, brother.” The hesitation did not go unnoticed by Arya, or by Elenna if her quiet huff and speeding up to walk apace with Arya was any indicator.

Before long she was pushing open the doors into her family’s apartments. Davos and Gendry were chatting near the fireplace, abandoned books and scrolls on the table. Arya remained near the door by Edric’s side, but Elenna had no such plans. She ran full tilt towards Gendry as soon as she was through the threshold. Gendry caught sight of her quickly, sweeping her up into a hug without stumbling.

“Go on any adventures today?” Gendry asked, his eyes only for his girl.

She nodded quickly, “We went to the cliffs and through town! And when we came home, we met Edric!”

“Edric?” he frowned, confused. He finally looked over to the door where he took in the stranger standing there. He shot a glance to Arya, who nodded once, and the frown cleared some from his face. She knew he understood her meaning, glad beyond belief that they’d always been able to communicate like that. Gendry dropped Elenna back to the ground, but placed a protective hand on her shoulder as he stared down the other man.

“My lord,” Edric greeted. Gendry didn’t reply, merely nodded. Davos looked as if he was holding in laughter, but said nothing.

The room descended into an awkward silence.

“You said you received a raven,” Arya prompted.

“Yes,” Edric said. “I did. Um,” he stuttered for a moment as he reached into a small pouch Arya hadn’t noticed under his cloak before. “It’s from the King, or someone claiming to be.” 

Edric held the letter out towards Gendry, but Arya took it before Gendry had to admit he still had trouble reading. Especially if it was Bran’s handwriting, which had always been a bit on the shit side. 

“‘Elio,’” she read aloud. “‘Your family has once again claimed their ancestral home. Westeros is clear of those who would harm you. Your brother is at Storm’s End. Should you choose to return, you will find yourself legitimized by order of King Brandon Stark, First of his Name, the Three Eyed Raven,’ so on and so on.” Arya finished, handing the paper off to Davos. She had paced the room towards her family as she read. 

“It has the royal seal,” Davos pointed out the grey wax dire wolf stamped to the bottom of the page. 

“You’re my brother?” Gendry asked.

“Seems that way,” Edric shrugged.

“How old are you, lad?” Davos cut in.

“Ten and nine.”

Arya’s spine straightened. They were the same age. 

“By rights of succession,” Davos continued, “You know you have no claim to House Baratheon’s seat. Gendry is three and twenty, much older—”

Edric cut him off before he could continue. “I have no wish to take any control. I only,” he hesitated. “I only came for the hope of having family. Again.”

Arya and Gendry shared another look. They both knew the aching desire for family, for somewhere to belong. To an extent even, a name to call their own. She knew without speaking they were in agreement. Edric could stay.

“You’re not family,” Elenna said abruptly. Arya’s eyes shot down to the girl who had crossed her arms over her chest. She worried for a brief moment they would have to turn the man away. Elenna had seemed to like him, but if she had changed her mind…

“We’re pack,” the girl finished. She pointed to each of them in turn. “Arya said that family is pack, and you’re Gendry’s brother, which makes you pack. Right?”

She looked to Arya for confirmation, seemingly unsure despite the confidence in her tone. 

“He’s pack if you want him to be,” she whispered.

Elenna stared steadily at her, then Gendry, and finally nodded.

“Welcome to Storms End, Edric.”

Edric fit into their lives easier than Arya had expected. It wasn’t hard to find and set up his old room in the mostly empty castle. The servants seemed happy to have more to attend to, some of the older ones even recognizing the boy from his youth. 

Their whispers spread quickly through the town and then the Stormlands, that Lord Edric Storm, now _Baratheon_ , wasn’t dead after all. And had returned home to his new family. Lords that remembered him sent letters of welcome and congratulations to the keep, promising to visit soon. His presence even caused pleasant letters from House Connington and Selmy to arrive, and most of the houses seemed more comfortable with the prospect of Edric as a possible heir—even if he did remain _after_ Elenna. 

Edric himself showed no such ambition, taking his time to get to know his brother. Arya watched them in the training yard—Edric with a longsword and Gendry with his hammer—and she catalogued all the features they shared. Aside from the obvious build and coloring, Edric had small things about him that echoed Gendry. She had never thought to associate the way Gendry’s eyes crinkled when he smiled with a feature of Robert Baratheon’s, but Edric grinned the same way. He had the same laugh, though his was louder and given more freely than her husband’s ever was. 

The sweetest similarity was how he took to the forge with the same passion and vigor. Arya, Elenna, and both Baratheon brothers began to spend hours a day working away. Elenna was more of a help to all of the blacksmiths, running all over the forge, completely at home within it. Gendry was teaching Edric the basics. They spent a full day helping repair mason’s tools and keep them sharp, as the stone masons from all over the region had been commissioned to help build more housing for incoming refugees. 

One afternoon, Arya returned from petitions to Gendry teaching Elenna how to actually forge small things and Edric working on his own. She watched him heat the bar of steel and beat at it with his hammer—still one of the smaller ones, she noticed. He didn’t hit the metal perfectly, and bounced off of the anvil a couple of times. When he returned the piece to the fire, Arya stepped forward.

“What kind of blade are you making?” she pointed to the hot steel.

“What makes you think I’m making a blade?” he snarked. She grinned easily. That was another thing he had in common with his brother—teasing her.

Arya laughed. “I may be a lady, but I’m also a blacksmith’s wife. I know what the preparations and markings for a new sword look like. So. What kind are you making?”

Edric smiled back at her. “A basic sword. Nothing gaudy.”

“The one you have already not good enough?”

“No,” he shook his head. “It’s not that I just—I _bought_ it. It’s not the same now that I can… It’s stupid.”

“It’s not,” Arya disagreed. They sat in silence for a moment. Edric brought the metal out of the fire and shaped it a little more then laid it down to cool, seemingly done. 

“I get it,” she hurried to say. “I get wanting something of your own. Something you didn’t buy or steal or kill for. Something clean that you built with your own hands from nothing. I—I get that.”

“Yeah,” he breathed out, relaxing back against the table. “I’m a bastard, but a highborn one. I lived with my uncle who loved me, and I got everything I asked for. I didn’t have to work for a single thing a day in my life, until Lys. It feels good to make something that will be _mine_. It feels like I’ll have earned it.”

Arya considered his words before exhaling and lowering her voice. “I think you and I are similar in many ways, Edric.”

He frowned, “How so?”

“Child of a great house,” she began. “Got most things we wanted as children. Our fathers died when we were young, and half of the kingdoms wanted to see us dead. The rest of our family murdered quickly after. Traveled to Essos and assumed a new life, a new name, and became someone else. Returned home after years to find that your bastard older brother had reclaimed your family’s home. Your family isn’t nearly as dead as you thought. You’re home but nothing feels quite right, though the stones haven’t changed and the halls are just the same. You wonder if it’s something that’s wrong with you or if it’s everyone else that’s gone a bit wry. 

“You work hard to carve out a place for yourself, and build something precious,” her eyes cut to where Elenna and Gendry were still working. “It’s yours and no one can take it from you. And you love it with all your heart.”

Edric had been staring at her as she spoke. When she finished, taking a breath and unexpectedly emotional, he moved forward to drop a hand on her shoulder. Then he pulled her in for a hug. Arya stiffened a bit, managing a brief squeeze of her own. Edric pulled back, eyes a bit watery.

“Exactly like that, actually.”

Arya nodded, locking down the part of her that wanted to cry for Robb, who got _so close_ —

“If you ever need anything, ask,” she moved away from the work benches to slip back out the door. “We’re family now.”

“Thank you, Arya,” Edric smiled at her.

“As long as it’s not smithing,” Arya continued, forcing a bit of a grin to her face. “I can barely make a suitable nail. That work’s best left to them,” she nodded towards Gendry and Elenna, who seemed to have completed something small.

Edric laughed at her, but didn’t say anything else. Arya slipped silently through the forge and back out into the courtyard.

She hadn’t meant to speak so candidly to her good-brother. It had been a long time since she’d laid her life out so succinctly like that; the last time being the Waif or Jaqen while playing the game of faces. She knew none of what she said was a lie, but part of her insisted that she was just wearing the face of Arya Stark. Maybe she came to find her entire family dead, and razed the ground their killers walked on. Maybe Arya Stark had reunited with her best friend, and pretended to love him, biding her time until the day she could be free of him. Maybe a girl died in Kings Landing as a dragon flew overhead. Maybe—

_Maybe_ —

Her ears were ringing. 

She wasn’t quite sure where she was.

Her hands were cold.

What if? What if—

She could hear the roar of dragon fire around her. Or maybe that was the dead.

Everything was dark. When had she closed her eyes? 

_Had_ she closed her eyes?

Everything was _dark_.

She _couldn’t see._

Oh gods, she was blind. 

She was blind again—or still. On the streets. 

A girl dropped to her knees and felt dirt beneath her fingers. The streets of Braavos weren’t made of dirt, they were stone. She wasn’t in Braavos. She opened her eyes. Before her were her hands, clawed into the dirt like an animals. She wasn’t in Kings Landing or in Winterfell either. She was in Storms End. A girl was Arya Stark.

She took a deep breath in and the roaring cleared some, along with a pain in her chest she hadn’t registered. What she did notice as she took a few more breaths was the pair of leather boots just a foot in front of her and the knees in the dirt next to them. She followed the knees to a face. Gendry stared worriedly at her, sat in the dirt for who knows how long. Arya turned to see the owner of the boots and recognized one of the newer kitchen maids, Wren. The young girl had a nearly terrified look on her freckled face.

“Arya,” Gendry murmured, calling her attention. He didn’t say anything else, only held his arm out. She took the invitation, standing with him and then allowing herself to collapse just a bit in his arms. Gendry took her weight easily, arms wrapping securely around her back and chin tucking over her head. 

Arya took a shaky breath in…and out.

“Thank you for telling me, Wren,” Gendry said to the girl as he began to walk with Arya inside.

The two of them slipped up a servants passage to their quarters to avoid more people than necessary. When they reached their room, Gendry slipped them inside and barred the door. Arya took in the familiar space, and the sight of her husband gazing worriedly down at her.

“Can we lie down?” she asked in a very, very small voice. She would normally be embarrassed by the sound. 

Somehow Gendry looked even worse after the request. “Of course, love.”

They toed off their boots, stripped down to their small clothes, and climbed under the pile of fabric and fur. Arya wormed her way into her husbands arms as quick as she could, breathing in the slightly sweaty smell of him.

There sat in silence.

“Wren found me,” Gendry muttered. “She said she saw you in the courtyard, and you didn’t like right. She said—” he took a breath, “She said, your eyes looked how dying men’s look.”

“Elenna?” Arya questioned.

“I left her with Edric,” he said, shifting to look her in the eye. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Arya—”

“I _don’t_ ,” she insisted. “I was talking to Edric some about my family, and trying to let him know I understood. And that—then I was outside and I didn’t remember where… I must have shut my eyes. It was _so dark_ ; I thought I was blind again.”

“Again?”

“In Braavos,” she explained. “I disobeyed. Killed someone I wasn’t supposed to. Stole a face. They took my sight from me. It was a punishment, or maybe more training. It was hard to tell with them.”

Gendry hummed in response, brushing his thumb under her eye. “But, you’re not blind now.”

“No, I earned my eyes back,” she smiled wryly as she remembered. “It’s the reason they failed to kill me in the end.”

“That sounds traumatic,” Gendry muttered, almost to himself. 

Arya paused. She hadn’t really thought about any of it since. “It was.”

Arya and Gendry spent the rest of the day in their room. Arya stayed mostly quite, not feeling up to talking much if at all after the initial conversation with Gendry. She tried some practice needlepoint that Elenna had left out the day before, just to have something to do with her hands. Her stitches were just as uneven as they had been as a girl, but without the pressure of a septa staring over her shoulder, she found she enjoyed how mindless it was. When the thread ran out, she tucked the needle into the fabric and laid it out on the table.

She felt restless and absolutely exhausted at the same time. Some time later there was a knock on the door, and Elenna waiting behind it. The girl came into the room, more quiet than Arya had seen her since she left Kings Landing. She was covered in soot the way Gendry used to be after a full days work, and her dark blonde hair looked nearly brown. Arya was struck by the sight of a brown haired Elenna with grey-blue eyes, and couldn’t help the place her mind went, imagining her as their flesh and blood child. She wanted that, she realized. To make something of her own, like she’d told Edric.

Elenna shifted her weight and made her way cautiously to Arya, fingers anxiously twisted together. “Are you better now?” she asked.

Arya sighed, “Yes and no.” 

She wasn’t going to hide the truth from Elenna, and beckoned the girl to her. She explained what had happened, and assured her it wasn’t Edric or anyone’s fault that it happened. Elenna wrapped her arms tightly around Arya, snuggling into her lap as she spoke. They stayed wrapped up together for a while silently after, and Gendry came to sit near them in a separate chair.

The three of them had supper separately from the whole household like they had taken to doing. The next day, Edric and Davos nearly rushed Arya with questions about how she was doing and if she needed anything. Wren, the kitchen girl, was caught by Gendry sneaking a basket of fruit tarts into their chambers she said her mother made after hearing what happened to the lady. 

Arya felt a little smothered by all of the concern. She felt it was nothing to really worry about, and it hadn’t happened since. It was like her nightmares; she had them and they weren’t fun, but nothing in her dreams would kill her. Despite this, she tried her best to be gracious to her family and the servants. They didn’t know what to do but worry for her. And the clear love in each of the gestures, if nothing else, made her grateful to be surrounded by them. 

Arya had been on her way to the stables to prepare her and Elenna’s horses for their ride when she overheard two of the stable boys talking. They hadn’t noticed her come in, and spoke plainly with each other.

“Do you think Lady Baratheon is sick?” One asked, lifting a saddle up onto a wooden stand to be cleaned.

“No,” the other replied. “I saw some and Wren told me the rest. My da used to have fits like that right after the war.”

“Was he,” the first boy lowered his voice, “ _Not right_? Touched?”

“Fuck off,” the other replied, tossing his brush. “S’nothing to do with that. Said it was the violence that got stuck in his head. The sound of metal clanging wrong would send him into shakes like our Lady had.”

The other boy made an understanding noise. Arya frowned, staying in the shadows. Whatever’d clicked for him hadn’t for her.

“Right,” the boy continued. “Lady Baratheon is the Hero of Winterfell, and survived the sacking of Kings Landing _and_ the War of the Five Kings. Some of that violence must’ve gotten stuck.”

Arya swallowed hard. It was then she made herself known, stepping in the ask for her horse. The boys moved to bring out the horses quickly with sharp ‘yes, m’lady’s. When they offered to saddle them for her, she waved them off back to their work. Each gave her a bright smile once she’d finished.

Arya knew being the lady of a Great House meant being in the eye of the small folks, but she almost hadn’t expected the deep care afforded to her. When she and Elenna rode out that morning, she pulled the girl into a tight and sudden hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. It felt necessary. Elenna smiled surprisedly at her, not used to the physical affection from Arya.

When she pulled away, Arya brushed her fingers over Elenna’s hair. The girl had styled it the same way she had. Arya let a soft smile slide onto her face. The inhabitants of Storms End loved them and loved their family. And Arya knew Elenna loved them right back, always running around and learning each of their names. She would make a wonderful lady should she choose it. Arya would do her best to prepare her if she did.


End file.
